Sara Ege found guilty of beating son to death for not learning the Koran fast enough
A British mother who beat her 7-year-old son to death after he failed to memorize excerpts from the Koran was found guilty of murder.
Sara Ege, age 33, was convicted of beating her son Yaseen to death with a stick at their home in Wales, then burning his body to hide evidence.
Police originally thought Yaseen died in a house fire.
Sara Ege, photo supplied by Wales authorities
Ege initially claimed her husband, Yousef, was responsible for the 2010 death and only confessed to the crime for fear he would kill her, too.
Ege is also accused of abusing her son in the months leading up to his death, allegedly beating him with a hammer and locking him in a shed for falling behind with his Islamic studies.
The trial at Cardiff Crown Court heard how the university graduate and her husband Yousuf Ege had enrolled Yaseen in advanced classes at their local mosque and hoped he would become Hafiz – an Islamic term for someone who has memorized the Koran.
During video testimony, Ege told police that her son was expected to memorize 35 pages in 3 months, but preferred to play with his friends and fell behind.
“I was getting more and more frustrated,” Ege said in the interview detailed by the Daily Mail. “If he didn’t read it properly I would be very angry – I would hit him. But Yaseen wasn’t very good – after a year of practice he had only learned a chapter.”
Yousef was acquitted of causing his son’s death by failing to protect him, the International Business Times reports.
Ege reportedly recalled beating Yaseen, then dragging him to the kitchen as he murmured extracts from the Koran. She reported seeing a “greenish yellow liquid” dripping from Yaseen’s nose ten minutes after the fatal beating. She did not seek medical attention for Yaseen, who suffered significant abdominal injuries, according to the International Business Times.
“He clearly suffered terribly,” prosecutor Ian Murphy reportedly said. “She started the fire to hide what she had done.”
Ege was found guilty of murder and perverting the course of justice, the International Business Times reports.
Ege will return to court for sentencing next year. She faces life in jail.
